The mixer would have a lot more space if they got rid of boxes in boxes, it’s just not needed. The few mm lost to those extra lines are vital. I’ve always thought that with out seeing S1. Over all I prefer the look of Cubase… considerably.
I don’t want channels in Cubase mixer to expand to the left or the right. Steinberg, please do not do this.
I personally hate having to switch between faders, inserts, and sends in the docked Console view. Slows me down. I like working with a docked console, but I’d prefer it if there was a way to see all that stuff at once with an expandable/collapsible side bar for each channel, or mixer channels that as vertical height changes to show inserts and sends as space permits. Studio One actually does both of these things, which is nice.
Right now, the only way to get a good overview of all three of those key things in Cubase without multiple clicks is to use the console view in full screen mode. If you prefer a docked console for other reasons, it means lots of extra clicking around.
Whatever involves the least possible amounts of clicking and navigating in total is best – I think it’s hard to argue that. Sometimes it may take a little getting used to, but the best things in life very often do. 
Cubase has so many great things but some of it is hampered by the very much aging design of the UI in some ways. Relax, I said some ways, not all.
There is absolutely room for improvement, and I am not afraid of change to make things better, faster, and more efficient. What I don’t like is change just for the sake of change, which we know does happen in Cubase for no reason.
I often find it’s the little workflow features, rather than the bells and whistles, that make the biggest difference with Studio One.
The new ability to assign key commands to inserts, FX chains and their specific presets has sped up my workflow no end.
Want to apply a low cut to several tracks at once? Just select the tracks, press the key command and it’s done. It takes a second.
Also, I have to commend their support. I’ve had to contact them 3 times of the last couple of years, in each case they replied within 24 hours, spent time on the issue, and the next (free) update contained a fix.
Jon… I’m going to come and sit in your studio and tell you reasons another studio’s better… but not personally, in front of your most prised customers, to them, not to you. It’s just not very courteous is it.
We can all make feature requests… and if we have an issue with support, make a complaint.
Everyone goes on about workflow improvements (which yes, are great) yet any time those improvements could of saved… wasted on forums.
I’m not quite sure why you’ve picked on me specifically, I was contributing my part to a thread on how Cubase could be improved by adopting at certain features of Studio One. I don’t see how that’s discourteous at all? I would (and do) suggest in other DAW’s forums about how they could adopt features from Cubase.
My experience with Steinberg support has been pretty awful (either 6 weeks to respond with an answer that had nothing to do with my question, or another time no answer at all), if it hadn’t been I wouldn’t need to say anything.
My experience with Steinberg support has been pretty awful (either 6 weeks to respond with an answer that had nothing to do with my question, or another time no answer at all), if it hadn’t been I wouldn’t need to say anything.
Same here
Something like this is at the absolute top of my Cubase wishlist. People may not realize how useful this is, but if Steinberg implemented something like S1’s remote control, it will blow people’s minds. It’s like Quick Controls on steroids and so much more effective. Any automation parameter can be mapped to any hardware and those mappings get recalled. Seems so basic.
Top of my wishlist
The Studio One Pattern Editor is very under-developed IMO. It’s missing functionality like: note ties, transpose (how do you miss those two in the initial requirements phase), colorizing notes by velocity, and there’s no ability to launch and trigger patterns via MIDI…
I’m not saying a basic step sequencer wouldn’t be nice in Cubase, but I hope they’d build it better than Studio One’s first attempt.
For the purpose of arrangement I personally think Cubase’s Arranger playlist runs circles around Studio One’s destructive Arranger track. Simply because you can try different arrangements, easily reuse (parts of) sections without needing to actually duplicate, it’s non destructive unless you Flatten and the options are way more powerful than what can be done in Studio One with the arrangement. The only thing the arrangement track in Studio One is useful for, is dragging a section of the song from A to B without needing to select all items in the section range. But a KC for Select > In loop works too in Cubase.
Also Cubase’s alternative on Loop follows selection is Cycle follows range selection, which basically does the same, but a tad less elegant.
Yes, Control Link is an absolute killer feature. It’s more than only mapping external controls to VST parameters. It’s a layer between incoming MIDI and automation and therefor it’s possible to record automation directly in MIDI parts just like you traditionally would do with MIDI controller data. Any VST parameter that is exposed to the automation system can be temporary or permanently linked to your external controller(s) and recorded in parts. Next to that you can simply drag any VST parameter directly to the musical editor controller lane for manual edits. Since automation data is sample accurate now in Studio One version 4, it’s super powerful and a joy to work with compared to Steinberg’s Quick Control solution (not sure if I can call it a solution even).
Agree. It can’t be really taken serious without the aforementioned features, but also the lack of basic things like delay or shift for kit pieces and steps is a big miss. No way to become Funky with that mr. Bot. 
Not even talking about the general concept of how patterns are incorporated. Generally the power of patterns is that one can trigger them in a non linear fashion (Note-FX pattern player would have been much better for that).
Unfortunately the Patterns are illustrative for how PreSonus develops things lately. They sketch out nice ideas, but don’t go really in depth to make them useful to seasoned musicians and producers, let alone stand out to the rest. Stuff like Arranger track, Low Latency Instruments, Chord track, Patterns, Drum editor, Note-FX, Mix-FX etc. all sound nice in the testimonials by all those Grammy nominated cool guys and girls, but in practice, when you work with them, they all are a bit… meh.
Steinberg’s first attempt (MIDI Inserts | Beat Designer) isn’t a great one either.
wow… thats how a controller should be used,just saw a movie on S1 control link,needs some work to do to assign HW to plugins parameter,and you can control your plugins so easily when in focus.
Thanks Rhino!
I’m glad more users with Studio One experience plead for something similar as Control Link in Cubase. It’s hard to convince Cubase users who use the traditional Generic Remote method how brilliant and powerful Control Link is compared to what they use now.
Here’s a video that describes the Control Link in detail
Control Link already has a Global Focus mode in addition to the Plug-in Focus mode. But yeah, totally agree that this could be built on top of the Generic Remote with some tweaks. Would be a killer addition to Cubase.
I was not impressed by the Studio One drum editor. I wonder what you think of it.